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   Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to support a joint resolution disapproving the extension of normal-trade-relations status to China.

   This is the fourth time that I have joined with other Senators to support such a resolution because I believe that trade policy is an effective tool that the United States can and should use

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   On June 3, President Clinton announced his intention to extend the normal-trade-relations trading status to China. As I understand it, without actually affecting the practical application of tariff treatment, legislation last year replaced the term ``most-favored-nation'' in seven specific statutes with the new phrase ``normal trade relations.'' Regardless of which phrase you use, I find this policy unacceptable. Although we have expected the President to make such a decision, I can only say that under the current circumstances I am once again disappointed in the President's decision. In fact, I have objected to the President's policy since 1994, when he first de-linked the issue of human rights from our trading policy. The argument made then was that trade privileges and human rights are not interrelated. At the same time, it was said, through ``constructive engagement'' on economic matters, and dialogue on other issues, including human rights, the United States could better influence the behavior of the Chinese Government.

   Clearly events of the last few months have shown the fallacy of that assumption.

   I have yet to see persuasive evidence that closer economic ties alone are going to transform China's authoritarian system into a democracy. Unless we continue to press the case for improvement in China's human rights record, using the leverage of the Chinese Government's desires to expand its economy and increase trade with us, I do not see how U.S. policy can help conditions in China get much better. De-linking trade and human rights has resulted only in the continued despair of millions of Chinese people, and there is no evidence that NTR or MFN or whatever you want to call it, has significantly influenced Beijing to improve its human rights policies. Basic freedoms--of expression, of religion, of association--are routinely denied. The rule of law, at least as we understand it, does not exist for dissenters in China.

   Virtually every review of the behavior of China's Government demonstrates that not only has there been little improvement in the human rights situation in China, but in many cases, it has worsened--particularly in the weeks preceding the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In fact, China has resumed its crackdown on dissidents who might have attempted to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Human rights groups have documented the detention of more than 50 dissidents since May 13, with a number still in custody. These have included two detained for helping to organize a petition calling on the government to overturn its verdict on Tianamen. The detainees include former student leaders at Tiananmen, a member of the fledgling Democracy Party, intellectuals, and journalists. Those not detained have reportedly been under constant surveillance amid calls by China's top prosecutor for a clampdown on ``all criminal activities that endanger state security,'' including

   such activities as signature gathering and peaceful protest.

   More generally, five years after the President's decision to de-link MFN from human rights, the State Department's most recent Human Rights Report on China still describes an abysmal situation. According to the report. ``The Government continued to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses. *.*.* Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process.'' This list does not even touch on restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and religion or the continuing abusive family planning practices.

   In my view, it is impossible to come to any other conclusion except that ``constructive engagement'' has failed to make any change in Beijing's human rights behavior. I would say that the evidence justifies the exact opposite conclusion: human rights have deteriorated and the regime continues to act recklessly in other areas vital to U.S. national interest. We have so few levers that we can use against China. And if China is accepted by the international community as a superpower without regard to the current conditions there, it will believe it can continue to abuse human rights with impunity. The more we ignore the signals and allow trade to dictate our policy, the worse we can expect the human rights situation to become.

   This year--1999--is likely to be the most important year since 1989 with respect to our relations with China. We face many thorny issues with China, including the accidental embassy bombing, faltering negotiations regarding accession to the World Trade Organizations and the recent release of the Cox report on Chinese espionage.

   But even with all that is going on, the United States and others in the international community yet again failed to pass a resolution regarding China at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva earlier this spring, largely because China lobbied hard to prevent it. Despite China's efforts to avert a resolution, the United States must also shoulder some of the blame for the failure to achieve passage--our early equivocation on whether we would sponsor a resolution and our late start in garnering support for it no doubt also contributed to the lack of accomplishment in Geneva. While we would certainly prefer multilateral condemnation of China's human rights practices, the failure to achieve that at the UN Commission on Human Rights proves that it is even more important for the United States to use the levers that we do have to pressure China's leaders. We can not betray the sacrifices made by those who lost their lives in Tiananmen Square by tacitly condoning through our silence the continuing abuses.

   We know that putting pressure on the Chinese Government can have some impact. China released dissident Harry Wu from prison when his case threatened to disrupt the First Lady's trip to Beijing for the U.N. Conference on Women, and its similarly released both Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan around the same time that China was pushing to have the 2000 Olympic Games in Beijing. After losing that bid, and once the spotlight was off, the Chinese government rearrested both Wei and Wang. These examples only affirm my belief that the United States should make it clear that human rights are of real--as opposed to rhetorical--concern to this country.

   If moral outrage at blatant abuse of human rights is not reason enough for a tough stance with China--and I believe it is and that the American people do as well--then let us do so on grounds of real political and economic self-interest. We must not forget that we currently have a substantial trade deficit with China. Over the past few years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has surged. It has risen from $6.2 billion in 1989 to nearly $57 billion in 1998. Political considerations aside, a deficit of that size represents a formidable obstacle to ``normal'' trading relations with China at any point in the near future. Other strictly commercial U.S. concerns have included China's failure to provide adequate protection of U.S. intellectual property rights, the broad and pervasive use of trade and investment barriers to restrict imports, illegal textile transshipments to the United States, the use of prison labor for the manufacture of products exported to the United States, as well as questionable economic and political policies toward Hong Kong.

   This does not present a picture of a nation with whom we should have normal trade relations. Or, if the Administration accepts these practices as ``normal'', perhaps we need to redefine what normal trade relations are. These are certainly not practices that I wish to accept as normal.

   My main objective today is to push for the United States to once again make the link between human rights and trading relations with respect to our policy in China. As I have said before, I believe that trade--embodied by the peculiar exercise of NTR renewal--is one of the most powerful levers we have, and that it was a mistake for the President to de-link this exercise from human rights considerations.

   So, for those who care about human rights, about freedom of religion, and about America's moral leadership in the world, I urge support for S.J. Res 27

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